Raghubir Yadav

Raghubir Yadav's Biography

Name: Raghubir Yadav (Raghuvir Yadav)

Birthdate: 25th of June, 1957

Zodiac: Cancer

Awards:

1) Raghubir Yadav was awarded the IFFI: Silver Peacock Award for the Best Actor category for his performance in ‘Massey Sahib’. He was given this award at the prestigious 1987 International Film Festival of India.

2) He had also received the FIPRESCI Critics’ Award in Venice for the very same film and for the same category.

Trivia:

1) He had been a student at the National School of Drama, New Delhi. He belonged to the 1977 batch.

2) Raghubir Yadav is the only Indian actor who received the prestigious Silver Peacock Best Actor Award at the 1987 International Film Festival of India.

Biography: Raghubir Yadav, also known as Raghubir Yadav is a renowned Indian film, television and stage actor, singer, set designer and music composer.

Raghubir’s career spans over several domains such as theatre, film, music and television. He had been involved with the Parsi Theatre Company and he appeared as an actor as well as a singer in more than seventy plays and over two thousand five hundred shows. He spent his early career travelling places in caravans, staying in tents and giving performances in various cities, villages and towns. He stayed with the Parsi Theatre Company from 1967 to 1973. Next up he started performing with glove puppets during 1973-1974 while he was working at the Rangoli Puppet Theatre situated in Lucknow. During 1977 to 1986, as a member of the National School of Drama Reperatory, Raghubir acted in around forty plays and over two thousand shows. Not only did he act, but he had also given his inputs to the accompanying sets, costumes, masks and music.

In the department of cinema, his very first film was in the year 1985 when he appeared in Pradip Krishen’s ‘Massey Sahib’ starring Barry John, Arundhati Roy and Veerendra Saxena. Here Raghubir played the award winning role of the protagonist, Francis Massey. His performance in the film was well appreciated by both the critics as well as the audience and as a result, he won two International Awards in the Best Actor category. After ‘Massey Sahib’, Raghubir signed up for various films which went a long way. 3 films in which he has acted have received nominations for the Academy Awards Best Foreign Language Film. These films include ‘Water’, ‘Lagaan’ and ‘Salaam Bombay!’. One of his most famous roles include the one in ‘Salaam Bombay’ (1988) where he played the role of a drug addict called Chillum. In the year 2011, he appeared in ‘Dear Friend Hitler’, directed by Rakesh Ranjan Kumar and starring Neha Dhupia and Aman Verma. This film derives its name from two letters which Mahatma Gandhi had written to Adolf Hitler, one in the year 1939 before the second World War, and the other in 1940 after the war began.

Raghubir began his career in television with the 1990 television series called ‘Mungerilal Ke Haseen Sapne’ directed by Prakash Jha. Here he played the lead role of Mungerilal, a clerk who gets bossed around by his senior at office and by his wife at home. Later on he enacted the role of Haji Naseeruddin in the television series ‘Mulla Naseeruddin’ and later on he played the lead role in ‘Chacha Chadhary’. He had even played the main role in ‘Arjun Pandit’.

In the department of music, he contributed a lot to the film industry. Some of the projects which he had worked in include ‘Dilli 6’, ‘Issaq’, ‘Maya Memsaab’, ‘Rudaali’, ‘Massey Sahib’, ‘Aasmaan Se Gira’, ‘Samar’, ‘O Darling ye hai India’, ‘Sunday’, ‘Ramaji London waale’, ‘Darna mana hai’ and ‘Billu Barber’. He had even sung the title track of ‘Chacha Chaudhary’. His song, “Mehngai Dayain” in ‘Peepli Live’ was praised and appreciated by many people. He lended his voice to various ads such as Pepsi, Vim, Parle, Kotak Mahindra, Coke, Icy Cool, Midday, Crack cream, Bagh Bakari Chai, Britannia, Maggie Mania and several others. He had also composed music for various eminent personalities such as Chotte Sayeed Bade Sayeed, Ghasiram Kotwal and Chaupra Kamaal Naukar Jamal. One of his recent collaborations include the one with Hitesh Sonik with whom he sang “Lamh Tera” in the 2nd episode of MTV Coke Studio Season 2. This was aired on the 14th of July on MTV India.